Forums

Errors Topic

So, i currently have 2 teams in a live league known as the USA Federation. The stats for the teams are below.

The Pittsburgh Prospects have 28 errors in 9 games.

Lance Johnson C fielder with 5.

Vince Coleman C fielder with 5.

Willie Wilson B fielder with 5.

Jose Reyes B- fielder with 4

Vance Bogart an OF i am playing out of positon and is a D fielder has only 3.

Sante Fe Small Slammers 20 errors in 5 games.

Bing Miller B fielder with 8

Babe Ruth A Fielder with 5

I understand this is a game, but it doesn't make any sense errors happening at this pace. I mean A and B fielders are on pace to make 60 or more errors while a D fielding AAA Outfielder who is playing out of position is on pace to make much less.

Seems out of whack to me...not sure who your pitching staff is but if they are all deadballers it might be killing your fielding, but it shouldn't be THAT bad. Here are the stats from my most similar league right now, From my Page-A-Day prgressive (a multi-season progressive so most years represented).

I don't think that's the problem as i have 1 deadball pitcher on each team, both of them are relievers. It looks like they are high in your league as well, however, the league leaders are all average to below average fielders at least.

I will admit it is a small sample size, but Bing Miller for example made 8 errors all year. Also, it appears my team is not the only one with this issue. I think the small sample size is what worries me because i have a feeling it's not going to get better. I am thinking maybe there is a bug in the live engine.

Posted by ace1430 on 3/11/2013 11:35:00 PM (view original):I don't think that's the problem as i have 1 deadball pitcher on each team, both of them are relievers. It looks like they are high in your league as well, however, the league leaders are all average to below average fielders at least.

Exactly-- You have almost all modern pitchers. Your fielding will improve and likey wind up better than their average performance histories.

While I agree with the above in that it's most likely a sample size issue, I'll ask a question: Are you playing these hitters fatigued? Fatigue can really do a number on defense, moreso than it does on hitting.

Posted by ace1430 on 3/11/2013 11:35:00 PM (view original):I don't think that's the problem as i have 1 deadball pitcher on each team, both of them are relievers. It looks like they are high in your league as well, however, the league leaders are all average to below average fielders at least.

Exactly-- You have almost all modern pitchers. Your fielding will improve and likey wind up better than their average performance histories.

You actually buy that it's a sample size issue? I don't. Up to a few standard deviations I would believe. Multiple good fielders with 4 and 5 errors in a game? That seems very, very off.

Posted by uncleal on 3/13/2013 1:45:00 AM (view original):While I agree with the above in that it's most likely a sample size issue, I'll ask a question: Are you playing these hitters fatigued? Fatigue can really do a number on defense, moreso than it does on hitting.

It is not a sample size issue. I just went through the league and randomly picked a starting offensive player from each team (to minimize the effect of someone who likes or loathes deadballers) and compared Errors/Inning at each player's primary position. The 24 players I used all have previous seasons in this league, and most have many seasons. On average, they are making 2.7 times as many errors/inning as their historical performance in the same league. The 24 players have a total of 2091.6 innings, which is getting well out of SSS range. The E/I figures actually skew low — because we are early in the season, some of the players I checked have zero errors and when they make their first the E/I will jump up.

If it were sample size, there would be a similar number of players with a decline and increase. Of the 19 players who have at least one error this season, 18 are above their historical E/I rate. The one that is down has a decrease that is miniscule. Looking just at players over 50 innings, 4 have no errors. The other 12 range from .2x as many errors as their historical performance to 21.6x. Only the 4 with 0 errors have a decrease in error rate of any size, and with their first error they will all move into the increase column.

For the 24 players sampled, the AVERAGE increase in errors/inning is 171.2 %; almost tripling their average error rate from the previous four seasons. Here is the chart:

I don't think fatigue is an issue, but will take a look at that shortly. It's a league with heavy reliance on AAA, and except for Game 1 everything played so far has been played live, so we would see any fatigue in the lineup just before starting the game and would have plenty of available, rested players in AAA.